


Sound

by NanakiBH



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, Spoilers, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 01:57:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14781425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanakiBH/pseuds/NanakiBH
Summary: Below the darkness, the sound of someone's voice waits to be heard.





	Sound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dream_Traveler_Kirvee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dream_Traveler_Kirvee/gifts).



> This is for my friend Kirvee who requested something a little similar to my last shukita fic, but with shuake this time. Basically, in the Velvet Room near the end of the game, Akira encounters Akechi (as a ghost) in one of the cells like the others and stops to spend a moment with him. Mood music this time was [Tsumariyuku Tame no Sequence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTYPuhczKOQ) by kiichi.
> 
> I enjoyed this quite a bit. I hope you do, too!

There were footsteps,

And the sound of a familiar voice echoed down the empty corridor.

They were getting closer. Trapped in his cell, Akechi had nowhere to go.

So. He waited.

He picked himself up and stood with his back against the wall facing the cell door, rathering to look presentable once met by his acquaintance.

 

That was all he could call him in the end...

 

“Pathetic.”

 

It didn't echo. His voice was quiet, but he was sure that no one would have heard him anyway. Even when he spoke loudly, his words had always been empty, hollow, devoid of the necessary meaning. The words he chose never conveyed his real feelings. They were there, still. Unheard. Even he had trouble hearing them.

Did it matter anymore?

A part of him hoped that he'd be overlooked again. He wanted to turn the spotlight away from his pitiful self. Once the mask was removed, the layers stripped away, all that remained were his raw, unsightly insides. Even if his mask burned his flesh, its pain was easier to endure than the eyes that stared pitifully at the thing underneath.

That was 'caring'.

That was 'kindness'.

It hurt so much.

After everything, it seemed like a waste. And yet he couldn't get it out of his head; the expressions on their faces, the sound of their voices. It was real. He heard them, and the memory reverberated endlessly in his chest. As painful as it was, he became attached to it and silently hoped that it wouldn't stop, repeating forever.

He was already exposed, yet it felt like there was something else threatening to burst from him, agitated by the incessant echo of their voices.

It made him want to bang on the bars.

They couldn't leave before him.

They saw. They saw already. They knew how ugly he was.

So...

It was fine. It didn't matter.

It was fine. Just that once.

He wanted to hear the sound of his own voice, as shameful as it was sure to be.

It was fine.

 

But. He still couldn't do it.

 

Even when he finally opened his mouth, nothing came out. Still pathetic. It was no wonder he'd been so easy to use. Unwilling to speak his own words, he let others put theirs in his mouth. It was something. It may have made him a puppet, but at least it made him feel like he resembled something halfway human. Somewhere along the way, he just stopped noticing the strings.

Even if he could speak – even if they could hear him – he didn't know what he would've said. There was a torrent of emotion inside him, but it was too turbulent for him to grasp anything. Just waiting, going back and forth between conflicting feelings, it was already beginning to seep out through the cracks in his heart. It was a terribly familiar feeling. He regularly patched it and plugged its leaks, aware that it would burst one day, forever putting it off, never intending to deal with the consequences.

They saw his anger, but there was more than that left in him. There was always more of something. If he let it go and neglected to patch it, he imagined that the flow would never stop. He couldn't imagine himself ever feeling satisfied.

 

He wasn't coming.

 

It was over.

 

Things like happiness and a sense of satisfaction were beyond him.

 

So, naturally, it was a surprise to him when someone stopped outside his cell.

Akechi lifted his head and met Akira's eyes. Still, he didn't know what he could say. His actions had spoken for him, even though he had so much more he wanted to say. There was a whole person inside him who had a whole life unlived. The person standing across from him looked so brilliant to his eyes, his image like a vestige of a possibility; who he could've been.

But they were just acquaintances.

 

“You're here,” Akira said quietly, confused, “but...”

“This place is strange. It won't let me go.”

Akira touched the bars. His gloved fingers slid down the surface of one bar, leaving an audible sound. The bars were real, but Akechi already knew that they weren't made of ordinary iron. And, even if they had been...

“I can't get you out?” Akira asked. He already knew it was hopeless to try, but Akechi felt somewhat flattered that he'd ask at all, as if it were worth freeing him.

Akechi softly shook his head. When Akira's hand fell away from the bars, he felt glad. He would've hated to have seen his desperation. It would've been embarrassing to watch. It would've hurt. He was too kind. Akira would've tried. Doubtlessly.

That was the difference in them. It wasn't just a matter of strength or persistence.

Akira was something else.

“I know what happened now,” Akechi said. As he leaned against the wall, he linked his hands together in front of himself. “I heard all about it from that girl you saved. She came by here a while ago and talked with me. Before that... I'm not sure. I don't know where I was. I don't know how much time has passed since I last saw you.”

“Lavenza, you mean?”

Yes. He recalled. That was her name.

“She said you put her back together. I remember this place having two attendants, but... I didn't visit very often. They didn't contact me very often, either. Igor always seemed pleased with my progress, but now I know that the Igor I'd known was an imposter.” It figured. He was easy to fool. “You probably knew he was a fake, didn't you?”

Akira shook his head. Slowly, he removed his mask. His eyes held disappointment.

“No. He tricked me, too.” He stared at the mask in his hands, then brought his eyes up. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Cute. “What, do you think you disappointed my expectations?”

Akira was quiet, though. That wasn't it.

The smile that briefly touched Akechi's lips quickly withered.

“Sorry?” That wasn't cute at all. “ _Sorry?_ How dare you. As if that makes a difference now. All that this means is that we were both idiots who were easy to manipulate. If you start questioning what you could have done differently, then I could do the same. It's pointless. Just a waste of time.”

“Is that what you think?”

Akechi stared at him, trying to extract the meaning of his question. He wasn't sure what Akira was getting at.

“Maybe you're right,” Akira said. He lifted a hand to touch the bars again, his gaze steadfast. “Regardless of the forces outside our control, you made your own decisions. There's nothing that I can do about that now. Even if I had been more aware, I'm not sure whether there was anything I truly could've done that would've made a difference. But what about you? Is it really meaningless to think about what you could've done differently?”

Of course.

That went without saying.

Irritated, Akechi shook his head. “We must still be on different wavelengths. I don't understand what you're talking about at all. Look at where I am now. Fair or unfair, my choices put me here. If I think about how things could've been different now...”

 

It wasn't pleasant.

 

There was a whole future inaccessible to him, one he could've easily touched if he'd gone just a few steps in another direction.

 

It was pointless. Thinking about it just made him feel like...

 

“Just get out of here.”

“I don't want to.”

Akechi laughed. Akira's response caught him off guard, both with its inappropriate stubbornness and its sentiment. He wasn't surprised that Akira wouldn't want to leave; that was just how he was. What surprised him was... The way it made him feel. It was as though Akira's stubbornness begged him to be the same way – to pick up his limbs, released from their strings, and move them by his own desire.

With that realization, Akechi knew that any further resistance would have made him look like a fool. _That_ was hopelessness; a failure to learn.

“I see,” he said quietly.

“The others are here, too. I already released a few of them. You probably think that the thing that has you trapped in here is something bigger than you could ever overcome. I won't claim to know exactly what it feels like for you, but I know that standing in place won't get you anywhere. You have to struggle.”

“How...” Akechi's voice faltered as his mind went in a slow circle. So he tried again. “How are you able to hear me?”

 

Even in the things he didn't say. Somehow.

 

“I like listening.”

 

The others seemed that way, too. It wasn't just Akira's own peculiarity. Maybe, because they knew him, and because they struggled against what held them back, they were able to obtain that insight. They tried. Even if there had been no guarantee that they would've succeeded, they tried. And trying seemed infinitely more respectable than adhering to the path that was easiest.

It was just in his head.

There was nothing stopping him from speaking and being heard.

 

“It's not fair,” he said, staring at the floor. The cracks within him began to widen and separate, but he resentfully let them continue without covering them. For the sake of being heard, he wasn't going to hold himself back. “I hate it... It's not fair...”

“What do you want now?” Akira asked.

“Me?” Akechi laughed unsteadily. “I want to scream. Don't you think this place seems made for that? It would echo all over. But if I did that... If I opened my mouth now, I don't think I'd be able to shout. I can't raise my voice above a whisper. I think... I'd probably just cry pitifully instead.”

Even admitting as much made him shamefully feel as though his tears had already been seen.

From the edge of his vision, he saw Akira nod his head.

“That seems normal to me. After all, you...”

 

Even Akira didn't want to say it, as if saying it would have made it real. But it was already real. Akechi was there in front of him, but he was already gone.

 

Of course he wanted to cry. He had someone to grieve for. It seemed self-centered and almost laughable to cry for himself, but it looked like the only way left. There was so much he regretted. There were things he never achieved. So much pain he ignored. A life wasted on ultimately worthless ambitions. So many things he could have done if he'd accepted the help of others...

He didn't expect anyone to cry for him, much less himself, but withholding his tears was killing him.

All his life, he'd been dying.

 

The feelings he kept tightly sealed away poured out from the cracks in the form of two tears. They fell effortlessly and hit the ground with a sound that seemed to echo more loudly than any words.

“Don't look,” he muttered.

He heard the smile in the fond sort of sound Akira made.

“I don't have to look,” he said. “I can hear you.”

In that case, Akechi wanted him to look and gaze upon his unsightly sound, to listen to the breaking of his heart.

“I don't want us to be just acquaintances. I hate this... I hate feeling like we passed each other by. This isn't where I wanted to be. I don't think I had any expectation of how things would end, but it wasn't supposed to be like this. I'd rather be there. I want to be there.”

Akechi dragged the back of his arm across his eyes, shocked that he could cry, more shocked that the tears really wouldn't stop.

He breathed in unsteadily.

“I don't know what you think you can do against the Grail. Even if it's something stupid, I wish I could help. I...” Clutching the front of his jacket, eyes clenched shut, he forced himself to say the words that Akira had surely already noticed. “I want to try! I want to do what you do! I want to try!”

He sunk to the floor and cried. The sound was so painful to his ears, he wished he could have spared Akira from hearing it. But he was glad he was there. Even if it hurt. He was glad.

It was just such a shame. His will to struggle had come too late.

He couldn't follow them.

He had to be there, alone.

So his despair fell from his eyes in painful, glistening drops.

 

“Akechi.”

 

When he raised his head, letting his red eyes be seen, he saw a hand extended between the bars. Akira was crouched on the other side, down at his level.

It would've been more dignified to stand, Akechi thought, but the hand held toward him seemed to tell him that it was okay to fall and stay down, to take his time getting back up.

When he went closer, he hesitated before taking Akira's hand. For a moment, he expected something else. He thought, with a hint of fear, that his hand might go right through him. It didn't. He touched him.

And he was warm.

“You aren't just an acquaintance to me. We aren't strangers,” Akira told him, looking into his eyes. “You're more important than that to me.”

“Even so...”

“I'll come back.” He put his other hand around Akechi's, holding it between his palms. “You'll see me again. As long as you're here, I'll keep coming back. Even if you still think we're just acquaintances, by the twentieth visit or the thirtieth, maybe you'll feel differently.”

Akechi took his hand away so he could wipe the tears from his face.

“Do what you want...”

The smile on Akira's face was so irritating, Akechi didn't even want to look at it. If he did, he was afraid it would've made him fall apart again. He was just starting to regain his composure.

Akira rose and Akechi awkwardly stood along with him.

He knew that Akira wouldn't be able to stay there forever. There was still a lot waiting to be said, but he felt a little better with the promise that he'd have another chance to tell him. For the time, what he said was enough. If he faded away at that moment, though he would have departed still holding many regrets, he would have felt satisfied having been heard.

So, even though his own smile made him feel unsteady, he held himself up straight and gave Akira one that was true.

“You have to do it now.”

Akira nodded resolutely. “We will.”

“And you... You fulfilled my request, didn't you?”

“We did.”

“Then, I have no doubt. I don't know how you plan to succeed, but I'm sure you will. You'll find a way to surprise me.”

Akira's smile was his assurance; the only answer Akechi needed.

Feeling that their time was up, Akechi took something from his pocket – the notepad he wrote his observations in. It was filled with unnecessary things. His perspective had changed, so every word read differently to his eyes.

He had just one thing to add to it.

Taking out a pen, he wrote one line on the last unused page, then turned it over to Akira. It was accepted without question. Akechi didn't miss the way Akira gently ran his thumb over the cover. That notepad wasn't anything so special, he thought, but he planned to remember that affectionate gesture.

“Until next time,” Akechi said, taking a step back from the cell door. “I don't know when I'll get out of here. I may be here for a long time, so I'll try to treat this as my own 'rehabilitation'. Even if I'm stuck in one place, I'm going to stop standing still. I'll think about how things could have been different, even if it hurts to do so. I'll try.”

He could have simply vanished, and, even if he had, it wouldn't have been pointless for him to have imagined the future he'd wanted. Those imaginings were the things his heart desired.

By the time Akira returned, Akechi hoped that the cracks would have widened enough to allow his true self free.

 

Akira parted from him without goodbye, leaving only a smile.

 

As Akira walked away, he opened the notepad. He paged through it, skipping over the pages and pages of emotionless assessments and misjudgments.

On the last page where something was written, there were just two words.

A fresh tear stain and the words 'Thank you'.


End file.
